National Parks: Revisiting “America’s best idea”

Arches
Arches National Park (Neal Herbert photo courtesy of National Park Service)

Historian and author Wallace Stegner once called the National Park System “America’s best idea.” Nearly a century after the park service was established, most who have had the privilege of visiting a few of our national parks would be sure to agree. Nothing captures the grandeur of this fragile, beautiful, incredibly diverse planet the way that our national parks do – and to be sure, I’ve been privileged to see quite a few.

So naturally I was delighted when USA Today invited me to help out with their guide to the USA’s best national parks. Here are my contributions:

1399054369019-Acadia-20Acadia National Park: Craggy granite mountains meet thundering waves in this wild island preserve, domain of seals and sea birds and fragrant forests of fir and spruce. It is also, at some times of year, the first place the sunrise touches the Eastern Seaboard.

1399054735011-Arches-12Arches National Park: More than 40 movies have been filmed in the otherworldly environs surrounding this park since 1949, from the John Wayne classics to Thelma and Louise’s final ride to last year’s Johnny Depp version of the Lone Ranger. It’s easy to see why.

1399063150000-Everglades-1Everglades National Park: America’s largest subtropical wilderness is like nothing else you’ll ever see. At more than 1.5 million acres, it’s the largest national park east of the Mississippi, and the third largest in the continental United States – second only to Yellowstone and Death Valley.

1400087230005-5446674662-bed83c3d22-oGrand Canyon National Park: The Paiute word for this canyon means “mountain turned upside down. Indeed, with an average depth of about a mile and a length of 277 miles, it’s more like an entire mountain range in reverse.

1399065440019-Grand-teton-20Grand Teton National Park: It took more than 50 years of legal and political struggle before this park became a reality. Now it’s impossible to imagine those soaring “purple mountains majesties,” and the 310,000 acres of natural beauty around them, as anything other than a national park.

1400078624022-XXX-Smoky-Mtns-1Great Smoky Mountains National Park: This 800-square-mile preserve in the Southern Appalachians, America’s most-visited national park, offers a stunning peek into some of the most intensely biodiverse land in all of North America.

1399073809004-Fordyce-Bathhouse3Hot Springs National Park: The nation’s smallest national park, this pioneer in hydrotherapy sets you on a path to the past as you “take the waters.”

1399310044002-Olympic-3Olympic National Park: If ever there were a park that had it all, this would be the one. Vast, windswept coast; remote and rocky peaks clad in ancient glaciers; verdant rainforest; steaming hot springs; icy, crystalline lakes and rivers; solitude for contemplation.

1399311305012-Rocky-mountain-13Rocky Mountain National Park: Alpine lakes, snowcapped peaks, meadows filled with wildflowers, crystalline mountain streams, majestic elk and bighorn sheep, midsummer days fresh enough to hike through the woods without breaking a sweat – it’s enough to make one pack up and move west.

1399312376007-Sequoia-Kings-Canyon-8Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks: This pair of side-by-side national parks has been called “The Land of Giants,” and with good reason. The towering mountains, endless canyons and, of course, the world’s largest trees have inspired millions.

1399997891027-12680311853-02186f2206-oYellowstone National Park: When John Colter of the Lewis and Clark expedition wrote home to describe finding boiling mud, steaming springs and geysers, he was widely ridiculed, and his find was termed “Colter’s Hell.”

1399314405007-XXX-HALFDOME03-YOSEMITEWINTERYosemite National Park:“It is by far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter,” wrote John Muir, who led the movement to greatly expand that wilderness, a movement that led to the creation of the National Park system and, eventually, the Sierra Club.


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